"An Adorable golem. Just look at all those pouches and SHOULDER pads... who would have thought those would ever come back into fashion." Lora fusses over Royken, until she senses she's a little close to him truly getting irritated and stops. "It'll only be for a little bit, hopefully."
Bleach watches Royken slip into the suit with some concern. Will this really help keep Royken safe? It would be so much easier to just use magic. "All it's missing is a sensible fanny pack, really."
"Well, we might as well go f$++ing deal with this s$&# now," Royken growls, moving stiffly in the contraption.
You head down to the bottom floor of the tower. Two enormous crucibles, each larger than a wagon, stand in the center of this large hall. The westernmost crucible stands upright, while the eastern crucible has tipped over, spilling a vast amount of cooled metal over the floor, which glistens with an unusual sheen. Overhead, the ceiling arches to a height of thirty feet and is painted with images of cannons firing upon collapsing castles. A dozen smaller alcoves circle the outer walls of the room, each containing a small crucible. Scorch marks and blast residue cover the walls and floor in this room.
All is initially quiet, but as you walk around the tipped-over crucible, something slithers out of it! The gelatinous ooze glistens in the light, its surface roiling with barely contained explosive potential, and you realize that the entire thing seems to made from pyronite! It begins to detonate from within, small explosions blasting out from its surface!
Bleach cloaks Royken with illusion magic that causes the dwarf's form to shimmer and shake. He then wisely gets away from the ooze as he prepares his next spell.
"That's..." Lora struggles for a moment with the proper sentiment "... both beautiful and disturbing. The blossoming of explosions inside it is amazing, but the fact it looks like something Roykin coughed up this morning is not."
"Yeah, we better keep our distance if possible. Spread around so it can at most get one of us!" She says, backing away in a different direction than Lora and Bleach and then sending an electric arc to test the waters.
Royken growls at Lora's comments, still staring at the gunpowder ooze. He feels like shooting this is just going to make things worse, but doesn't seem like they have much choice.
The ooze avoids some of Eva's electric blast, but it is damaged by it. As the rest of the party falls back, the ooze sloughs forward to Royken, attacking with it pseudopods as explosions detonate around it!
HP 75/122
AC 26
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +14 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 48 rounds
Effects:
Royken snarls and brings his gun to bear, slamming it into the ooze before dashing past it to try to draw it away from the others.
As Royken smashes the ooze with his gun's stock, the impact doesn't damage it. Instead, it causes the ooze to explode!
The ooze splits into two smaller oozes, each roughly the size of a human, which fly through the air with the force of the explosion.
One lands 15 feet away from the dwarf and the rest of the party to the side of the crucible, but the other one lands directly in between Royken and the others!
Royken growls as things get worse. "Droskar's dick!"
HP 57/122
AC 26
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +14 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 48 rounds
Effects:
Bleach calls upon the denizens of Urgathoa's closet to heed his call, and drags a skeletal giant into this plane of existence. The boney giant marches forward in an attempt to intercept one of the oozes.
Lora yelps as the smaller blob slams down near her. Roykin got scorched so she doesn't run like any sensible person would though, instead her song shifts to include some healing.
Eva cranks her arm, causing it to become enveloped in electricity. She then moves around in a way that both oozes are lining before unleashing a megavolt at them!
The summoned giant fails to hit the ooze, though Eva's lightning blast damages both of them.
The ooze the giant attacked strikes it back, destroying it with a single critical hi! It then sloughs back over to Royken to attack the dwarf. The other ooze moves over to attack Eva.
HP 59/122
AC 26
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +14 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 48 rounds
Effects: Immobilized, blast plated
Locking the suit, Royken lets it take the worst of the blast. Unable to move, he decides to just pound the ooze, hoping he can knock it out of submission before it can do the same to him.
"Grrrr!"
Eva gets pummeled and blasted, almost getting knocked down. Gritting her teeth, she overdrives her arm and punches as hard as she can before moving away from the ooze as she thinks she'll not survive another round.
Lora switches her song to heal Eva, while continuing her previous song to sustain her healing of Royken.
Unable to blast their foes with a life-draining mist, lest he also suck dry his friends, Bleach instead opts for a protective spell.
Eva punches the ooze nearest her, while Royken batters the one attacking him. The dwarf shoves it away and fires his gun, but the blast goes wide.
The exploding oozes focus their fiery blasts at Royken and Eva. Royken takes two hits, and Eva takes one. The oozes then slough toward one another on Royken's side closest to the rest of the party, merging back into one large ooze. Its explosions batter Royken further.
Lora's songs are barely making a dent into the damage these lumbs of chemicals are doing to her friends. But if she stops to do anything else, she worries they will fall.
With the ooze merged again, Eva keeps her distance and blasts it with electricity while raising her shield.
HP 34/122
AC 26
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +14 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 48 rounds
Effects: Immobilized, blast plated, stone skin (reduce physical damage taken by 5 for 20 hits)
Royken groans as he continues to burn, though he's still standing. He's not sure how much more he can take of this. "We need a break!" he grates.
Unlocking his armor, he retreats to join the rest of the group.
Bleach conjures forth another undead being. This time it's a grotesque zombie, but the wizard knows it is no match for the ooze. "Here, this guy should slow it down long enough for us to get out of here ..."
The ooze avoids some of Eva's lightning as Bleach summons a zombie to cover your retreat.
As predicted, the ooze quickly demolishes the zombie, but that slows it down enough that you are able to flee back upstairs and out of the danger zone. The ooze does not pursue you.
"Okay..." the bard pants at the frantic fleeing. "... that went worse than expected. Does anyone know anything about exploding oozes, or just oozes in general that will help?"
After the question she starts to patch up their two burned and battered members, and tries to think herself as well.
The wizard gives Lora an apologetic shrug. "I honestly have no clue. Can't say I ever saw something like this before, nor have I read about anything like it. If we want to tame this explosive bugger, we'll need stronger protective magics. Say, an exceptionally strong resist energy spell. But even that won't fully protect you against what this creature brings to the table ..."
"We were wearing it down," Royken says. "Just need to tape up these burns, and go in again."
"True, but it was also wearing us down, and I felt like we were going to lose that race. I, eh, used most of my protective magics on you there, but it seemed to not care for the illusionary protections I put on you."
"I agree with Royken and don't feel bad about not knowing what that thing was... it appeared to be made of pyronite, so it is something somewhat new." She adds to Bleach and Lora. "As long as we do not overcommit ourselves in a way that we can't retreat from it, we'll eventually destroy it."
After healing up, you go back downstairs for a rematch! The pyronite ooze is still sloughing about the room, blowing up repeatedly! It orients on you as you approach...
Royken fires, reloads and fires again.
After a long amount of time singing wounds away, Lora pauses to down a flask of honeyed wine, then hurries after the already descending dwarf in a can. Once the oozes are in sight, she begins a song about soap scum, a washerwoman's nightmare, and then creates an illusionary duplicate of Royke, firing his shotgun.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=995
Then the bard pulls her gun at her hip, and fires with blinding speed. Finally she darts away from the others to avoid being exploded.
Bleach weaves life-quenching necromantic power into a whirling miasma, and launches it at the explosooze.
Keeping her distance for now, Eva overcharges her arm and blasts the ooze with electricity again.
The ooze takes Eva's lightning blast full force, portions of its body splattering around room. Royken and Lora shoot it, though the mindless creature is immune to the bard's shadow projectile. Bleach manages to wither it a bit as it sloughs inevitably towards Royken. The ooze lashes out at him as its constant explosions batter the dwarf.
Bleach moves into a position that lets him blast the ooze with even more necromantic magic without getting Royken into the mix. A crackling ray of vanta black nothingness seeks out the ooze, eager to claim its life essence.
Lora's bawdy musical magic shifts through inspiration and healing.
HP 113/122
AC 26
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +14 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 48 rounds
Effects: Stoneskin
"Get the f#$! away from me," Royken growls as he locks the blast plate to deflect some of the worst of the blast.
Even knowing it may split the ooze again, he brings his gun to bear swinging at the thing before reloading.
Eva and Royken both hit the ooze, the dwarf knocking it away with a heavy blow. It resists Bleach's enervation spell before shuddering and forcing itself to explode! The blast washes over Eva and Royken as it splits into two smaller oozes once more, each one flying through the air and landing further away. The pair slough back up to be in melee range of Eva and Royken.
Lora continues her healing narrative coupled with inappropriate inspiration. She does cheer at the heavy blow Roykin gives, and also when she assumes the creature exploding into parts was due to Bleach's spell.
HP 112/122
AC 26
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +14 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 47 rounds
Effects: Stoneskin, locked plate
Thanks to the armor, Royken's burns aren't that bad, and almost all immediately healed by Lora's music.
"Look, I told you," he growls to the ooze, "we don't f##$ing want any!"
Eager to stay as far away from the explosive oozes as he possibly can, Bleach bombards them from afar with lightning.
Eva punches the ooze in front of her once, then Royken batters the other one, shoving it away and shooting it! Bleach zaps booth oozes with electricity, and Royken's target collapses in on itself.
The other ooze attacks Eva once more.
But it is barely holding itself together, and with a few more solid blows, it is destroyed as well!
"By Geb's ethereal balls, what in the world was that?!" It's rare for Bleach to swear or utter profanities, but the look on his face says it all: this creature was more than his mind could handle. And almost more than the party could handle.
But with its life essence gone, the wizard's curiosity starts to kick in. What exactly was this creature? And what powered it?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Lora's bright eyes go wide (mostly with amusement) at the filth coming from Bleach's mouth. As someone keen on learning all she can about everyone around her, she understands that while the words themself were not nearly as strong as a curse from Roykin. But the lack of frequency makes them all the more potent.
"From Geb's ball to Sheylin's plush tush, I fully agree, Bly'gha" she smiles warmly at him. Then gets to business "Oh I guess we should look around" she says after sending healing magic into both Roykin and Eva.
Eva takes a sound beating, so she sits on the floor to get some air as Lora's magic heals her again and again. "That thing was for sure the most dangerous thing we've ever faced."
Once the healing is done, she joins the others into looking around.
Lora's search uncovers remnants of saltpeter, soda ash, and other pyronite supplies, indicating the materials were stored here. Eva is able to tell that a chain reaction recently occurred in the hall, exposing a variety of chemicals to the pyronite supplies and creating the ooze.
Searching further, Lora discovers the scorched remains of a dozen tiny creatures in the corner of the room. They are nearly unidentifiable, but Bleach has enough experience with dead things to recognize them as pugwampi gremlins. Pugwampis give off an aura of bad luck--so many pugwampis in a confined space like this would have intensified that bad luck, which likely triggered the chain reaction.
There is no indication, though, as to who released the pugwampis here or why...
"Hgnrgh," Royken grunts as he looks for Pugwampi tracks.